The United Kingdom as of April 1, 2016, held 4.6 million cubic meters of radioactive waste and expects to produce at least another 170,000 cubic meters through the year 2125, according to the government’s latest accounting.
The current and projected future stockpile of 4.77 million cubic meters, covering all wastes after packaging, does not include 1 million cubic meters that has been disposed of to date, says the report released Monday. It also does not cover waste that might be produced from future nuclear power plants.
The inventory is released every three years, and the new figure has risen by roughly 50,000 cubic meters (about 1 percent) of waste from 2013, the U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy said in the report.
The waste was primarily produced by the nation’s nuclear power industry through production of nuclear fuel, reactor operations, spent fuel reprocessing, and site decommissioning. The United Kingdom is dismantling 11 closed nuclear power plants, while another eight remain operational.
The lesser contributors to the U.K.’s nuclear waste levels are spent fuel reprocessing at the Sellafield site in Cumbria, which is due to finish in 2020; nuclear weapons production at the Aldermaston facility and nuclear-powered submarine operations and maintenance at the Devonport and Clyde naval bases; and commercial medical diagnosis and treatment activities.
Only 1,500 cubic meters of the total amount of present and forecast material (again, after packaging) is high-level waste, but it represents more than 95 percent of the radioactivity. The material is produced through spent fuel reprocessing at Sellafield to extract uranium and plutonium. The waste can be converted from a liquid into a solid glass form in a process known as vitrification; Sellafield’s Vitrified Product Store holds close to 870 cubic meters of solid high-level waste in 5,780 canisters, the report says.
The great majority of the U.K. volume is very low-level waste, at 2.72 million cubic meters. This is “lightly contaminated” material that encompasses soil and structural building components left by demolition and cleanup of nuclear facilities.
The U.K. as of last April also had 1.6 million cubic meters of low-level waste, which primarily encompasses concrete and other building materials from dismantlement of nuclear plants including reactors.
The nation’s smallest holding was 449,000 cubic meters of intermediate-level waste, such as glove boxes, tools, and filters used at nuclear sites. The waste is produced in maintenance, refurbishment, and disassembly of those facilities.
Future waste production projections account for closure of today’s operational nuclear power sites from 2023 to 2035; fuel reprocessing through 2020; the 2020 shuttering of the European Torus fusion experiment; defense-related waste through 2110; and medical and industrial waste up to 2080.
In the long term, the U.K. plans to build a deep-underground Geological Disposal Facility for its high- and intermediate-level waste. The government is working on a site-selection process to identify a willing community in an area with viable geological characteristics.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority already owns the Low-Level Waste Repository in West Cumbria.
NDA Funding Update
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority expects to spend £3.24 billion ($4.03 billion) in its 2017-2018 budget year to carry out its work of decommissioning 17 nuclear facilities around the United Kingdom, according to the organization’s latest business plan.
The U.K. government will provide £2.36 billion of the funding and commercial operations the remaining £0.88 billion.
Site operations would receive £3.06 billion of the funding, leaving £0.18 billion for other expenses including research and development, NDA operating costs, and skills development.
Sellafield Ltd., the wholly owned NDA subsidiary charged with cleanup of the Sellafield site (Europe’s largest nuclear site, encompassing more than 1,000 buildings), would receive the lion’s share of funding: £2 billion, covering decommissioning and cleanup costs and operations expenses.
That would be followed by £572 million for Magnox Ltd., the decommissioning site license company managed by the Cavendish Fluor Partnership (until 2019) to decommission the U.K.’s fleet of Magnox reactors. Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd., the site license company for cleanup of the former fast reactor research facility in Scotland, would take in £189 million.
The U.K. financial year runs from April 1 to March 31.
The current NDA funding level is up by £40 million from the 2016-2017 year. The nondepartmental public body is due to receive £3.18 billion in 2018-2019 and £3.09 billion in 2019-2020.
